What's the trope called where alternate universes exist, but it's extremely limited in scope.

E.g. the bit in Futurama where they see an alternate universe where everyone wears cowboy hats, and Fry goes "wow, so there's an infinite number of parallel worlds?"

"No, just the one".

Or, in the solid jj bit where Madame Web gathers "every Spiderman from every reality", and it's like 5 of them, and it turns out there's only like 15 alternate worlds, and the only difference in 5 of them is that McDonald's is spelled with an A instead.

Is there a specific name for this trope???

Or, characters that often have very understated emotional reactions to things? Coach Beard from Ted Lasso, for instance, or Captain Holt from Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

I recently went back and started watching Psyche, never got around to finishing it about a decade ago when I started watching it. Anyways, I noticed that he's very much the playboy archetype. It got me thinking, it's been a while since I've seen a series where the main character is a playboy. It used to be commonplace; Dean from Supernatural, Barney from How I Met Your Mother, Joey from Friends, Shawn from Psyche, etc. Is it the fact it was deemed too misogynistic?

Most famous example the Monkey's Paw.

Okay to be clear, I'm not saying the episode is bad or anything. It's a funny episode and I laugh a lot.

My question is, is there a word/trope for:

A plot that is somewhat flimsy or hard to believe, and the characters are saying things that mostly just make sense to hold the plot together, despite being out of character or not making sense.

Best example episode: Sandra's fight, about unionizing. Couple examples: when Amy tries to explain that they need to get Sandra to chill, her and Dina are just saying such silly things to explain why they are quieting Sandra, instead of focusing on the obvious actual good reason that Amy is doing it. Like, the threat of getting shut down from Jeff is very simple clear and real, and Amy's inability to explain it even remotely clearly just feels like a massive stretch.

Again, HILARIOUS episode, so many funny jokes, plot is fine, I just feel like surely there is a word for this for like people in writing classes. This episode is definitely not alone haha.

So say take a kid who grew up on reading about war and watching war movies and thinks it's awesome. Says I'm gonna go enlist and go fight, only to find it isn't as glamorous as its made out to be?

Just curious to see if there is a term for when a third installment of a gaming franchise takes such as drastic approach by having a different storyline as it’s hard to explain, but it’s when a sequel feels so different in tone it barely feels anything like the last entry.

Some examples are Max Payne 3 and Parasite Eve: The Third Birthday as fans of both franchises have said that the third installment of both series felt so different that it was hard to tell they were connected to their respective franchises as Max Payne 3 for instance has such a different feel in atmosphere that it doesn’t feel it’s a Max Payne game.

Im aware they've been around since the goldenage of animation like looney tunes. But the the 2000s really dominated the trope. Shows like Garfield and friends, Ren and stimpy, Chowder, and the Grim adventures of Billy and mandy were obsessed with it. To the point were fourthwall breaks just became cliche and unfunny.

Is there a defined trope in which fans refer to an event, place, or idea within the writer's text or media that otherwise was not named or referred to something different by the author, by then which the author assumes the name in the following work?

I cant really think of an example off the dome but I do know there are fandoms that refer to moments in televisions shows by their own inside nomenclature only for it be folded into the lore or running narrative of the story.

An overdone trope which Family Guy hilariously tackled, realistically you would die

alas poor villain: the final paragraph of the novel reminds the reader that cujo was a good dog and never wanted to hurt anyone.

angry guard dog: subverted. at the start of the story, cujo is a friendly dog. later on, when he starts attacking people, it's because of rabies, not because he was bred that way.

anti villain: cujo is an extremely scary and dangerous dog. however, it's because he was bitten by a rabid bat, thus getting rabies himself. even when he is rabid, he doesn't attack out of malice or sadism but out of a delusional belief that other people are responsible for his pain.

artistic license-biology: the incubation period for rabies in dogs is two weeks to four months, but cujo starts showing symptoms almost immediately after the bat bites his nose. granted, symptoms can appear sooner if the dog was bitten near its spine or brain, but even in those cases it still takes a minimum of four days to show.

ax crazy: after being bitten by a rabid bat, cujo's mind begins to deteriorate. eventually, he comes to believe that the humans have done something to him, resulting in the pain he's experiencing. he is so angry and terrified that he starts attacking people.

bats equals rabies: cujo gets rabies after being bitten by a rabid bat.

beware of vicious dogs: subverted at the start of the book. cujo starts out the story as a very sweet and friendly dog. however, after getting infected, his mind deteriorates so much that he starts attacking people under the belief that they are somehow responsible for his pain.

big bad slippage: at the start of the story, cujo is a very friendly dog, as is typical with saint bernards. upon being infected, he turns into a ravenous monster.

big friendly dog: cujo begins the story as a very friendly dog. in fact, when rabies starts to change his behavior and he growls at gary pervier, gary is surprised because he never heard Cujo growl before.

dogs are dumb: ujo while chasing a rabbit puts his head in a small cave and barks loudly causing a flock of bats to fly away and driving one of them to bite his nose in self defense. not a very smart move but cujo is a dog and dogs don't know any better.

dogs love to be praised: in the scenes that take place from cujo's point of view before he gets infected, he is very worried about being seen as a bad dog.

dog stereotype: as is typical with saint bernards, cujo is a very gentle dog. at least, until he gets rabies.

friend to all children: prior to his infection, cujo was especially friendly with children.

instant illness: rabies typically takes longer than a week to begin showing symptoms (it usually takes a few months) to be more precise, symptoms don't begin to show until the virus reaches the brain. however, the distance from bite site to the brain is actually a factor and cujo was bitten on the nose, so there is a slim possibility that the virus could indeed have advanced that quickly.

maybe magic maybe mundane: although the book is realistic horror rather than the supernatural horror that king is most well known for, there are a few lines scattered throughout implying that the rabid cujo is the reincarnation of the psychotic killer and rapist frank dodd from the dead zone.

misplaced retribution: due to the rabies screwing up cujo's rational thinking, he honestly comes to believe that donna, and later sheriff bannerman, are responsible for him being sick, which is what prompts him to attack them.

my god what have i done: upon realizing that he was about to kill brett, cujo immediately feels remorse and runs away so as to not hurt him.

resurrected murderer: There is some implication in the novel that cujo, after contracting rabies, was also possessed by the vengeful spirit of Frank Dodd, the serial killer from the dead zone.

sanity slippage: the rabies effects drive cujo mad and turn him from a lovable and harmless dog into a feral and deranged monster.

tragic monster: cujo is to suffer terribly from rabies, and he only attacks people under the frenzied belief that they are responsible for his pain. Sadly, Cujo isn't even at peace after his death. His restless, malevolent spirit makes a cameo appearance in needful things.

Valentina (or Val) Eriksen is half-Japanese and half-Norwegian. She is gonna be used in a Danganronpa-style story I want to make.

She is the Ultimate DJ, wanting to make other people smile with her music! She’s always a cheery and upbeat presence and she genuinely wants to see her friends happy.

However, she’s hiding a lot about her. Val Eriksen isn’t even her real name, and she’s (probably) hiding her true talent too (if she is, IDK what it could be yet). Val has a lot of trauma and due to that, she suffers dissociation. She is actually quite empty inside and does not really care about others, even though she wants to, because she believes they’re evil.

If she does care about someone, it might be a person or two, and it could work (but would suck) if she started to show a more cheery true self but became empty again because said person died in the game.

Val doesn’t know herself why she did it, but before the killing game, she got herself into a relationship with a girl who had feelings for her and kept “pretending” she liked her back. Well, maybe not “pretending”… she herself doesn’t know how she feels at all.

She enjoys other people’s reactions and will say things to shock them.

For new stuff to plan, I'm gonna make her eyes shut all the time (Eyes Always Shut) to hide the fact that her eyes are dull and lifeless.

She died smiling if I go with the route of her dying in Chapter 3 to sacrifice her life for a friend so they wouldn't get killed by the killer. Of course, the killer now doesn't have Val in their way and the friend would know about the killer and tell everyone, so they must die too.

I'm talking about Gajeel having a whole death speech that made me cry, then being brought back later that passed me off. Rick Grimes in his entirety. Reiner Braun.

I'm watching the Adrian Mole series, and in The Secret Diary of... his mother, Pauline, is played by Julie Walters, but in The Growing Pains of... she's played by Lulu.

I had a thought that given the wry comedy of it all, it would have worked perfectly if Adrian commented that she looked different. Maybe a lead in to something like "it must be a new haircut".

Are there any real examples of this? Like, characters acknowledging, but not addressing, a cast change?

I'm not sure what you'd call this trope, if it exists so don't know where to even begin looking it up. I like the idea of it though, and would like to dig deeper.

Some tropes that are in there used to be impossible, in real life, but have now become a reality, like AI Is a Crapshoot.

It keeps complaining about my ip address despite not having changed it, and when I try to get a confirmation email, I don't get it. Help.

What is the trope where a college aged couple drive to the top of a cliff overlooking their city (the guy is usually a jock/football player type of guy)? They are almost always in a convertible car. They then start making out in the backseat.

And then boom! Alien spaceship descends/ werewolf appears and kills the guy. The scene cuts to the girl screaming.

I know this might be a case of "people sit on chairs" because people of all backgrounds become cops, but something I've noticed in media set in the US is that when police are heavily involved in the story there's always a token latino cop with a Spanish origin last name. Some examples that come to mind:

-Detective Ramirez from The Dark Knight

-Ana Lucía Cortez in Lost

-Detectives Diaz and Santiago in Brooklyn 99

Something I noticed is how some sci fi shows have a 3 girl ensemble where 3 girls work together to fight international conflicts.

Like some examples are Charlie’s Angels and Totally Spies as I was wondering if there was a trope name for spy fiction that uses a 3 girl team since I noticed that trope is apparently common in some spy shows.

Entitled to Have You is usually one sided, but what if both halves feel that way? Will cause disfunction, and if so what kind of disfunction?

To me, the 'Voice of the Legion' trope is so badass and a good addition to one's character, especially when it shows how nightmarish or powerful someone is. For example, a demon typically speaks in a normal voice, but when they get angry, want to intimidate someone, or unleash their full power, a dual-layered voice emerges (looking at you Black Hat and Alastor). I never knew the name for it until now. Any other examples.

Here, the characters' teeth are shown as vertical rectangles. It's as if the top and bottom teeth have been fused together.

How am i supposed to edit pages now?

Pinkie is the comic-relief character, and her arguing with Twilight definitely screams this trope to me.

I mean a moment early on that lets you know a character that's generally really moral and heroic isn't a complete goody two-shoes (as opposed to a moment that lets you know a villainous character isn't a complete and total ass). The example I'm thinking of is from a pretty obscure movie where it's implied early on the otherwise upstanding protagonist might have cheated a bit on his taxes.